


we'll eat cake by the ocean

by NoStringsOnMe



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Related, Comfort Food, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Weight Gain, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoStringsOnMe/pseuds/NoStringsOnMe
Summary: “It’s all patience and learning, m' darlin’,” she’d say and lay a gentle kiss into his hair. “But the real special ingredient is love, you hear me, James Barnes? When you mix in your love, it turns a pauper’s meal into a king’s feast.”|| Bucky Barnes has been to hell and back. But he's healing. Through his newly rediscovered love of cooking, he starts to come back to himself in ways he could never have anticipated.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 45
Kudos: 125
Collections: MagicalNet Poetry NEWTs, Stucky Bingo 2020





	we'll eat cake by the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of [@magicalnet's](https://magicalnet.tumblr.com/) Poetry NEWTs.  
> It also fills a bingo square!  
> Stucky Bingo: B1 - Coma

**_“Because thinking about your love brings so much richness to my life_ ** **_  
_ ** **_That I would rather have it than be king.”_ **

**_\- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29_ **

*

Sugar. Fat. Acid. Heat.

These were all the building blocks to delicious food. Bucky Barnes knew this, he felt it in his soul. It was something his ma had taught him all those years ago when he was too small to see over the counter and had to stand on a milk crate 

Winifred Barnes taught him everything he knew about food. She taught him how to make the cheapest cuts of meat melt in your mouth and how to stretch out a stew for a whole week. She showed him how to knead bread and how to work pastry so that it came out flakey and buttery and left a sheen of grease across your mouth.

“It’s all patience and learning, m' darlin’,” she’d say and lay a gentle kiss into his hair. “But the real special ingredient is love, you hear me, James Barnes? When you mix in your love, it turns a pauper’s meal into a king’s feast.”

He’d laughed as a child, had thought it was just something grownups said to make kids smile. He hadn’t known what she meant, not really. It wasn’t until he was older, living out of some scruffed up tenement with Steve - noisy neighbours and a privy with a wonky door - that he began to see what his ma was talking about. He’d made up a pie from a handful of half-wilted scraps and some meat he’d won in a card game against Mr Harrington’s son from four blocks over, and he’d watched as Steve, Becca, and Becca’s girl, Bernadette, all moaned and ate with a kind of relish that set his skin on fire from the satisfaction.

*

“Make us that pie like you used to?” Steve asked. He was draped over his shoulders, hanging off him as he examined the contents of the fridge.

“Hmm.” The big lump was being very distracting. He kept nosing at his jaw, soft, insistent lips pressing against his pulse point. “I won’t if you keep doing that.”

“No bad thing,” he murmured and nipped at Bucky’s earlobe, hot breath melting over his skin. Bucky felt himself get silken and loose - the bastard. 

“Urgh, oh no you don’t” He wriggled away with a low moan, already regretting what he was about to say. “You’re a demon. If you want fed, go buy me chicken livers and ham.”

Steve made a low, rumbling noise in the back of his throat that Bucky felt like he could feel reverberating through the tiny scrap of space between them. They stared one another down. Grins curled at the corners of their mouths, each daring the other to make the next move, a battle of wills they were well versed in at this point. The loud gurgling from Steve’s stomach put an end to his overtures. 

“Fine,” he moaned. “You win. I’ll get your damn meat.”

“Sure, you had me on the ropes, pal. Away with you.”

The begrudging kiss Steve planted on his waiting mouth was made all the sweeter by his victory, and he sent him off with a smug smile. He came back with the meat, as requested, and some of Bucky’s favourite chocolate - because apparently in the future you could have freeze-dried raspberries in your candy and he'd decided it to be something he needed in his life at all times. However, he'd also returned with his little spider and that bumbling archer she was so fond of.

It had been months since Steve had brought Bucky home and he still couldn’t quite bring himself to relax around the redheaded assassin. She reminded him too much of the cold, and the snow, and it hurt his head to think too much about his own part in her so-called upbringing. She was perfectly polite, never one to overstep his boundaries, but the way those dagger-bright green eyes of hers cut into him proved that she didn’t quite trust him either.

Her archer was easier. Where Natasha Romanoff was like ice chips and the acid burn of too much vinegar, Clint Barton was like hot, spiced cider and butter pastry. He was blonde haired and blue-eyed, golden like Steve, though always just a bit scuffed up, bruised like a peach left at the bottom of the barrel too long. But, he didn’t look at Bucky with pity in his eyes or seem to fear he might break if pushed too hard in any direction. It was refreshing.

The kitchen in Steve’s East Williamsburg apartment was much too small for Bucky’s taste. He wanted an island, and a double oven, and a six burner hob. As it was, he had two narrow countertops, an oven with a single solitary shelf, and stove top with a crappy ring. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful, he just thought they could afford a few luxuries now. But he made do because Steve still had some guilt and the remnants of the Depression to shake off and Bucky was in no position to push at someone else’s recovery. 

Some days, Bucky’s recovery was a fragile thing, something he tiptoed around; where it felt like even the wrong look would send him stumbling all the way back to square one. Other days, it was rock solid. He liked those days - made him feel like he had his shit together. 

The cooking helped. 

The food of the future might be different, there might be more things to choose from, but the actual processes of _cooking it_ hadn't changed much. Except people didn’t seem to like butter anymore and as far as Bucky was concerned, they were missing out. He didn’t spend 70 years being fed grey sludge through a tube to now deprive himself of some of life’s finest luxuries. Not now his stomach could handle it, that was. 

When Steve deposited the groceries, he crowded him against the counter for another kiss, pressing against him in a way that promised there would be more to come once they didn’t have company. Not that Bucky would have minded. Natasha and Clint would have seen plenty worse than either of them could cook up together. 

While Steve entertained in the next room, Bucky began his preparations, pulling his deep navy blue apron on over his head because he could hear his ma, God rest her soul, griping at him to keep his ‘good clothes clean’. They weren’t that good. His t-shirt was all mended holes and tatted patches but it was the thought that counted. 

He made the dough first. He made it one handed because even with all its sensors and processors, his metal hand couldn’t tell him how the dough felt, that, and the fact that prying dried pastry dough out from between the constantly moving plates was an absolute ball ache. You had to get your hands dirty to get good pastry, there was no getting around that, but Bucky liked to think that that only applied to flesh hands, not bionic ones. 

Cooking was straightforward. It had a structure and routine. You slice onions, they make your eyes sting. You heat butter, it melts, you add flour, it makes a roux. It made sense. Not like life - where backfiring cars made him flinch more often than not, or a voice raised in the wrong way could send him careening into a black panic.

With the smell of frying onions and cooking meat filling the tiny kitchen, the windows had started to steam up and a delicious heat swirled around him. Bucky breathed in long and deep, salivating already. There was no better smell. It didn’t matter if it was 1939 or two thousand and whatever the year was now, he doubted anything would top this smell, except maybe fresh bread. Which reminded him, he had to make more, and feed the sourdough starter in the fridge, and pick up more yeast, and they were out of pumpkin seeds, and mustard powder for that matter, and -

"What are those?" 

Bucky started, heart shuddering in his chest to see Clint Barton hovering by his left shoulder. He’d been so focused, so consumed by the task at hand, he hadn’t heard him shuffle through from the living room. In the next room he heard Steve laugh. It was a loud guffaw and he could just imagine how he’d be throwing his head back and the way his eyes would sparkle with mirth. The archer peered into his pan.

"Chicken livers," Bucky muttered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw him flinch away and make a face. He rolled his eyes and checked the underside of the meat. It was starting to crispen.

The archer edged closer again, hands in his pockets. "That's a lot of butter," he said. Talk about stating the blinking obvious.

"Butter makes it taste good," he said, a bit gruff and bordering on defensive, but Clint just laughed and bumped their shoulders together. 

"Now you're my kind of cook." 

Well, Bucky thought, he’d never been one for boiling things into oblivion, that was Steve’s area of expertise. But just as he was thinking this, he realised that Clint hadn’t stopped speaking. He kept on chattering, rattling off all his favourite recipes and bemoaning fat-free yoghurt - which sounded disgusting. Yoghurt was supposed to have fat in it. What was the point of taking it out?

He kept up this stream of consciousness until the pie was in the oven, and while Bucky did his best to tune it out, every so often he would say something that caught his attention.

"What do you mean you can just _buy_ pastry?" he asked, rounding on him.

"Oh yeah. You can buy sheets of the stuff. Tastes-"

"Like cardboard?"

"Sometimes," Clint said with a sly smile that was closer to an expression his little spider might wear than him.

Bucky scoffed. "If you're going to do something, you should do it right."

And Clint grinned, broad and toothy and warm, and insisted that he come with him to the ‘best deli in Brooklyn’ which just so happened to be a few blocks over to get sides and snacks to go with the pie. And Bucky, before his brian caught up with his mouth, found himself agreeing. It might be fun, he supposed, but _he_ would be the judge of if this deli deserved that kind of title, thank you very much. 

*

> **_8:16pm, Sunshine Boy to JBB_ **
> 
> _Be home in approx. 24 hours.'_
> 
> **_8:17pm, Sunshine Boy to JBB_ **
> 
> _Missed you._

> **_8:23pm, Hawkguy to JBB_ **
> 
> _Family dinner. Tomorrow. No arguments._
> 
> **_8:23pm, JBB to Hawkguy_ **
> 
> _Fine but I'm cooking._
> 
> **_8:24pm, Hawkguy to JBB_ **
> 
> _Like I'm letting you get all the glory._

*

Bucky Barnes was not a morning person. He _used_ to be a morning person, but then, that might have been out of necessity rather than some innate desire to be up at the asscrack of dawn on a chilly Thursday in October. His face felt puffy from sleep, there were pillow creases still imprinted across his cheek, and they were out of coffee. A brisk wind whipped down the street and Bucky burrowed deeper into his hoodie, pulling his jacket tighter around his body, and stifling a yawn. 

He had slept like shit. Always did when Steve was away. Whatever the mission was, it had taken his partner halfway across the world for three weeks with little to no contact. Bucky didn’t need to know the details. It was better he didn’t. He would only fixate otherwise. 

Romanoff was with him, Wilson too. They were more than capable of bringing Steve home in one piece. Which left Bucky with Barton for company. Or it might have been as a babysitter. Either way, he didn’t mind so much. The archer sent him recipes copy and pasted from food blogs with all the waffle cut out, and took him to the incense scented boutique that sold his spider’s favourite kind of baklava. He had also made it his mission to try and get him drunk; but so far Bucky had only drunk him dry and remained, himself, brutally sober. 

Clint trudged up the street looking about as good as Bucky felt. His sandy blonde hair stuck up at all angles and he was bundled up inside a holey jumper, the tattered hem of his jeans trailing behind him. Clutched in one hand was a thermos filled to the brim with coffee and trotting along at his heels was Lucky, his one-eyed Labrador. When he approached, he grunted his hello and swigged long and deep from his flask.

"You're lucky that I like you enough to get up at the arse crack of dawn to go to a fucking fish market, Barton," Bucky griped, kneeling to give Lucky a scratch behind the ears. The dog gave a soft woof and bounded up to lick his cheek, delighted to see him.

"This was your idea!" Clint snapped in response, looking wounded.

"Doesn't mean that it was a good one."

Bucky shrugged, straightened, and they began meandering their way towards the subway. 

"If you want the best quality ingredients then you have to be willing to go straight to the source. How many more times do I gotta say that before you get that into your thick skull?" The archer was moody, bordering on petulant and shooting a dull glare his way. 

"Maybe all the brainwashing made me dense?" Bucky deadpanned. Clint snorted.

"Ha. Nice try. I'm not Steve, the pity party schtick won't work on me."

"Whatever. You gonna share that coffee?” Clint passed the flask. He took a long draft and gagged, almost spitting it out onto the sidewalk.

"Ooh, big scary assassin can't handle sugarless coffee."

Bucky made a sour face and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "Fuck off, man, last time I checked I could still drink you under the table." 

"Like it counts with all that serum enhanced bullshit you got.” Clint waved a disgruntled hand at him. “I mean, you can take a shot without wincing, I'll give you that much."

"So gracious."

"Tasha says it's one of my few redeeming qualities."

"Maybe so, but your pierogies are shit." Bucky grinned, knowing that it would get a rise. Clint's face screwed up and he scowled at him. 

Clearly, he was still put out about the afternoon he’d spent with Wanda where she’d showed him her grandmother’s pierogi recipe. She’d been real sweet about it, had heard through the grapevine about how he’d been having a shitty few days and had appeared at his door with grocery bags full of ingredients and an apologetic smile. 

“They make me feel better when I’m having a bad day, thought they might make you feel better too,” she’d said, and fixed him with that intense, unblinking stare of hers.

"God, you're annoying,” Clint groaned, bringing him back to the chill of the morning from the cosy warmth of his memories. “Will you shut up if I buy you some sugary crap from Starbucks?"

When they reached the subway, Clint bundled Lucky into a giant rucksack and hauled the dog onto his back. Lucky grinned, tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth, his one good eye all scrunched. Sleepy looking passerbys in rumpled suits smiled dopely at them and few of them even asked if they could pet him. Clint didn’t seem to mind what they did so long as his dog wasn’t stressed out by it. Smiling to himself, Bucky snapped a picture of Lucky to send to Steve.

> **_6:03am, JBB to Sunshine Boy_ **
> 
> _Subway dog_
> 
> **_6:10am, Sunshine Boy to JBB_ **
> 
> _Give Lucky scritches from me. 12 hours to go._ 🤗

Making good on his promise, Clint bought him a caramel and hazelnut concoction from Starbucks, piled high with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. Clint shot him a disgusted look but Buckky ignored him, happy to warm his fingers against the cup and track the warmth as it slid into his belly. 

It was hot and sweet, creamy and nutty in equal measure. It was everything good in this world, as far as Bucky was concerned. Back in the day, he hadn’t been one for sweet things. Now, he’d happily have cake for breakfast just because he could and there was no one to tell him no.

It wasn't even seven by the time they walked through the doors of Fulton Fish Market.

The sharp tang of fish and salt hit like a punch to the gut. 70 some years wasn't going to change that kind of stink. It was raw. Raw as if the sea was a person and you'd cut into their belly just to let their guts spill out across the floor. Vendors bustled back and forth, shouting with accents so laced with memory and familiarity, it was like whiplash. Was he 6 years old again? Was his ma walking by his side instead of Barton? Blinking, he shook his head and huffed, hunching in his jacket.

These people might not belong in the 30s but he belonged here. He could feel it in his bones. These were _his_ people - _working_ people. Their faces were weathered as creased and crinkled as old leather. It was the face of his father, his uncles, his ma. It would have been the face of Sarah Rogers too, had she lived long enough to be considered old. Hell, it would have been _his_ face had he not been boosted full of Hydra's serum.

These were people who had worked all their days and would keep on working till their hearts gave out. Bucky knew them. It was like walking through a warped memory, or staring at it through a fun house mirror. 

"I came to the original as a kid, you know," he told Barton as they walked through the market.

"Oh yeah? Changed much?" He gave him a side-long look and took another swig from his thermos. 

Bucky shrugged. "Not really. I've changed more than this kind of place. Fish market is a fish market. People are people."

Clint's bark of laughter set Lucky off and the dog reared up, tapping his feet on the concrete, begging to play.

They wound their way through the stalls until they found Clint’s contact. He was a towering man, rotund, with greying, coily black hair and russet brown skin that creased and folded around a warm, broad-featured face. His forearms were thick from years of toil, his chest barrel deep. When he saw Clint, he greeted him with a booming shout and clasped his arm in one hand and pulled him into a hug with the other. 

The stall next to him was filled with crushed ice and dead-eyed fish that stared up at him. While Clint spoke to the man, Bucky examined his wares. He couldn’t shake the feeling of deja-vu. He was eye to eye with a silvery-green mackerel, its mouth hanging open, the fishy odor wafting through the air, so strong that he could taste it. There were men, he remembered, that paid his ma with fish sometimes - in return for his pa trucking their wares. She’d make pies and stews, and if they had extra milk going spare then she’d make cullen skink. His mouth watered at the memory of it, practically able to taste the creamy broth and flakey fish. 

Despite all his ma’s best efforts, he’d been a skinny kid, then a gangly teenager with knobbly joints. He’d been a lean young man too, always erring on the side of underfed. It wasn’t always immediately obvious to someone looking at him, though. His face threw them off. It had always been a bit round, cheeks a little chubby. A baby face. Christ, he used to have a baby face alright. The men of his squadron used to tease him something rotten about it, calling him “cherub” and “sweetcheeks”. Steve hadn’t been much better, knew it got under his skin. 

By the end, however, he was hollow and gaunt and their pitiful rations were only _partly_ to blame for that.

“What’re you needing, son?” asked the fishmonger, breaking his train of thought before he could fixate on the way Hydra had made him hard and sharp and had cut away all the softness they could find.

He passed him the list from his pocket and the man eyed it, lifting an eyebrow and pursing his lips. His eyes were shiny under the market lights, bright like freshly shelled chestnuts. 

“You’ll be makin’ bouillabaisse then?” Bucky nodded and the man grinned. 

“If you’ve got a cod head and a hake frame to spare, I’d be real grateful. Need ‘em for the stock.”

The fishmonger laughed, hearty and deep. “Ah, someone who knows how to do things properly. Gimme a minute and I’ll sort you out.”

Fifteen minutes later, Bucky spilled out onto the street with three bags full of all the fish, mussels, clams, and necessary ‘fish bits’ for that night’s meal. The sun was just beginning to come up fully but they still had to hit the farmer’s market. There, he bought tomatoes the size of his fist, sweet olives, tangy lemons, three punnets of blueberries to go with the crème brûlée he wanted to make for desert, and several armfuls of fresh vegetables. 

By the time they returned to his apartment, he’d spent an obscene amount of money on what looked like not that much food once it was piled up on his kitchen table. He frowned at it, hands on hips. It wasn’t like he was hurting for cash anymore. The back pay was generous, even if it still felt like blood money (some twisted reward for all the horrible things he’d done, a pat on the back for being a killer). But, he decided, the least he could do was use it to put some good out into the world. Sure, some fish soup and crème brûlée wasn’t going to change the _whole_ world, but it would at least make the people in _his_ world happy. And that was enough. For now. The rest of the world could come later - Steve had that part covered, Bucky could join in when he was ready.

If he ever would be. Bucky contemplated this as he rolled up his sleeves and began descaling the fish in the sink while Clint started work on the bread. When he first came home, he’d promised Steve he would follow him back into the good fight. And he would. If the time came where he really, truly was needed, then he’d be there in a heartbeat, ready to fight, protect, serve. Except if he was truly being honest with himself, that wasn’t where he wanted to be. His happiness lay elsewhere. 

Yeah, it lay elsewhere, he thought, as he laid the last fish to the side. Pale, silvery scales stuck to his skin and were crusted across the knife blade. He ran the tap, sluicing water over his arms and watched as the scales swirled down the drain. He was happiest when he was at home, waking up from a full night’s sleep with the sun licking across his skin. He was happiest when he could burrow deep under the covers and press himself to Steve, bed warmed. Could breathe him in and leave a trail of kisses in all his favourite places. 

A wash of calm flushed through Bucky as he fried off onions and leeks, inhaling the sweetened scent with a sigh. It slid down either side of his spine, molten, and drew the tension out from his shoulders. He smiled and let his hips sway in time to the soft music playing over the speakers as he added tomatoes and herbs to the pot. 

Across the kitchen, Clint hummed tunelessly along to the music, brow furrowed as he kneaded the bread dough. Every so often, he would grunt as he worked, putting both his shoulders and all his weight into working the dough back and forth the floured counter. It was a funny sort of teamwork. So often in his past lives, teamwork had had a common goal of destruction and violence. 

This didn’t. 

This was pure creation. 

And although there was a snide voice in his head that told him over and over that he was not made for creation, he fought it. It was wrong. He could be. He _was_.

For a moment before he added the cod head into the pot, he held its dead eyed stare. Its mouth hung open, rows of spiky teeth visible. An ugly thing. But even ugly, dead things could turn into something beautiful and good with enough care.

These thoughts stayed with him as he brought the stock up to the boil. They weren’t jagged thoughts that tore at him, instead they were smooth, rising up on a gentle current where he could examine them, decide if they were worth his time. The stock started to bubble and a gelatinous scum floated to the surface. Bucky spooned it off and with every pass, his thoughts clarified.

Had he not made delicate, beautiful things with these hands? Had they not been the source of joy and pleasure? He didn’t have to be what they had made him. 

He was in control now.

They worked through the day, stopping briefly for lunch but neither ate much, eager to save themselves for dinner. The air in the apartment was thick with the smell of their cooking. Bucky could practically wade through it. Fresh bread, the acidic tang of tomatoes, salt, fish, and the sweet, creamy scent of custard mixed and mingled, a heady concoction that wrapped him in warmth. 

By the time they were finished, he was stiff, neck sore from being bent over the stove. But it was the good kind of hurt, the kind that said he’d achieved something. 

“When are they due?” 

“They were leaving ten minutes ago,” Bucky said over his shoulder as he fixed himself in the hall mirror. Clint hummed and shuffled back through to the kitchen, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt.

Steve fell through the door at 6pm on the dot. Romanoff and Wilson trailed him. They were all a bit banged up. Wilson had his arm in a sling and dark blue bruising crept up his cheek and around his right eye socket, giving his normally smooth, dark brown skin a slightly mottled look. Romanoff was sallow like she hadn’t slept for days - which, knowing her, might have actually been the case - and there was a week old cut through her eyebrow. Bucky observed all of this but didn’t really take it in, only having eyes for Steve.

He gave him the once over. Heavy bags hung under his eyes and he looked a little grey. Rapidly healing bruises covered his arms and crept up his neck from underneath his t-shirt. Taking his face in his mis-matched hands, Bucky examined him for a minute, only letting him come in for a kiss once he was satisfied he had returned to him in one piece. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve sighed straight into his mouth, locking an arm arm his waist and pulling him close. “Missed you.” 

Bucky hummed and melted against him, moulding their mouths together.

“Missed you too,” he murmured, brushing their noses together.

“I can tell.” Laughter lurked just below the surface of his words and Bucky shot him an indulgent look. It had been a long three weeks. Sue him. 

“Uh, we’re still here. Or would you like us to leave.” Wilson’s voice cut through their warm bubble of reunion. 

Spinning in Steve’s arms, Bucky smirked. “More food for us if you do.”

“I didn’t spend all day grinding in your hideous kitchen to get booted out of your apartment before I can eat,” Clint said, acerbic and glowering. He had his little spider tucked under one arm and she was smiling fondly at him.

Holding his hands up in the universal sign of ‘alright, you win, now get off my back’, Bucky herded everyone through to the living room where the foldaway table was set up and already groaning under the weight of their baskets of bread, bowls of tapenade, and bottles of wine. Playing the perfect host, he got everyone a drink and plied them full of snacks so that he could slip back into the kitchen to finish off the bouillabaisse. 

Except, the universe being the universe will always mean that people will congregate in the kitchen at parties no matter how hard you try to keep them away. Steve trailed behind Bucky, not wanting to let him out his sight. Romanoff and Barton followed soon after, and Wilson, not wanting to be left on his own, ambled through with Lucky at his heels. It was a bit of a tight squeeze but Bucky liked it. 

They shot the shit, laughed, and drank. Steve pressed up against Bucky’s back, resting his chin on his shoulder as he stood at the stove, keeping an eye on the food. 

“Hmm, smells like Marseilles,” he said and Bucky could feel him smiling against the side of his neck.

“How would you know what Marseilles smells like? Last time you were there you were groaning through broken bones and were unconscious for two days,” Natasha piped up. The colour had returned to her cheeks and her eyes were narrowed at him. She sat poised on one of their kitchen chairs, glass of wine in hand, looking as if she belonged in a movie scene.

“Wasn’t the first time I was there, was it,” Steve shot back. Bucky felt his laugh rumble against his back. “You remember, right, Buck?” he added in a low voice, only really speaking for him.

“How could I forget?” Bucky snickered at the memory as he stirred the pot. “Dum Dum almost died because he swallowed a fishbone.”

“Thank God for Gabe Jones.”

“Only one of us that his head screwed on that night.”

Another rumbling laugh reverberated against Bucky’s back. He pressed a lingering kiss to Steve cheek.

Sam snorted into his wine glass. “I knew there was a reason Gabe Jones was my favourite Howlie.” 

“Sam, please, you come into _my_ home...” Steve was pretending to be offended and Bucky could feel him clutching dramatically at his chest. 

“Just because I’m over here and holding a spoon, doesn’t mean I can’t maim you, Wilson,” Bucky added for good measure, giving the man his best and most saccharine smile. 

“Steve, restrain you man, would you.”

“Don’t look at me, dude, you’re asking for it at this point.”

Wilson threw his one good hand in the air, exasperated, but then he laughed and Bucky figured that they were all good. Or at least as ‘all good’ as the two of them could be at the moment. The spider observed it all with a curious look on her face, no doubt still trying to reconcile the blank faced man of her childhood and the steam flushed one in front of her now wearing the very nice dark blue denim button down. Not that he blamed her, he did the same. She sipped her wine and Bucky caught sight of her scars peeping out from underneath the sleeve of her turtleneck. Her widow's bite was nowhere to be seen.

The thing about cooking for others was this: Bucky could not, would not, eat a single bit until everyone had tried it first. Once their plates were piled high, he sat still on Steve’s right side, eyes flickering from face to face. Clint did the same. When their eyes met across the table, he flashed Bucky his crossed fingers and small, tight smile.

But he needn’t have worried. 

Appreciative moans filled the room and all conversation died as they ate. Bucky ducked his head and smiled into his soup. A warm, slightly tingly feeling bubbled up under his skin, blossoming from beneath his breastbone. The feeling was delicious. He wanted to keep it, to bottle it, to drown himself in it. 

They polished off the stew. Everyone went in for seconds and Steve, with his insatiable hunger, went in for thirds. There wasn’t a drop left. Any residue was mopped up with slabs of sourdough till the plates sparkled again.

Looking around the table, Bucky saw that everyone had the same glazed look, eyes drifting in and out of focus, hands pressed against distended bellies. Bucky settled back in his chair, arms folded, smug and more than a little satisfied. 

“You’ve outdone yourselves guys.” Steve sounded a little hazy as he spoke but there at the corner of his mouth was a whisper of a smile. “That was the best thing I think I’ve ever eaten.”

“Funny what three weeks of mission rations will do to a man.” Natasha yawned and stretched like a cat before scooting closer to Clint and resting her head on his shoulder, eyes starting to drift closed. 

“You have fifteen minutes to revive yourselves from this food coma because there’s still dessert to come,” Bucky warned, nudging Steve in the ribs. All he got in response was a cut off grunt that could have been mistaken for a whine. The only one even remotely with it was Clint but he was trapped in his spider’s web and subsequently unable to move. He shot Bucky an apologetic look and shrugged. “Useless, the lot of you,” he muttered under his breath, sending his eyes to the ceiling as he stood.

He made a show of being annoyed, huffing loudly and clattering the dishes, but really, he didn’t think he could feel any happier. Yet, he knew that it wasn’t just this budding, no, _blossoming_ happiness he felt - it was pride too. It made him pause as he pulled the dessert from the fridge. He stared at the sunshiney yellow tops, still sugarless and delicate, and examined this new feeling. It pushed up his tightening throat, threatening to overwhelm him. It had been so long. Pride, real and genuine pride in his work (in himself), felt both disconcerting and achingly familiar. It felt like something someone somewhere had tried very hard to root out. 

Bucky smiled, blinking back the rush of emotion, and gave himself permission to feel as proud as he damn well liked. 

Later, once the other’s were gone and it was just the two of them left in the apartment, Bucky stared at himself in the long mirror, head cocked and eyes narrowed. He’d been getting ready for bed when he’d caught sight of himself. Something was different. He didn't know what. He couldn't place it. His pyjama pants hung low on his hips like they always did; soft, and warm, and worn. His dark, chestnut brown hair, still damp from the shower, was braided back out of his face. That wasn't unusual either. His stubbly beard was neat and freshly trimmed. A few stray hairs littered his throat and collar bones but that didn't seem to be what was throwing him off. Slowly, he twisted this way and that to see himself from every angle. 

This wasn't like before. When he looked in the mirror, he knew who was staring back at him. There was no mistaking who this face belonged to.

"Are you coming to bed or are going to stand there preening all night?" Steve piped up from the bed, not looking up from his book. Sleep was starting to edge into his voice and he was sprawled across the pillows, blonde hair spikey and sticking up in all directions.

"Hmm." Glowering at his reflection one more time, Bucky turned, hands on hips. "Do I look different to you?"

Steve looked up then, let those beautiful blue eyes wash over from head to toe and frowned, eyebrows pinching together. A few more long, silent sweeps and Bucky started to get agitated, wanting to know just what it was his partner was thinking. But then his face cleared, blissful and sweet, and he smiled. 

"Your face," he said softly, titling his chin. "It's fuller."

He spun back around. Askance. Bucky scrutinised his face, nose inches from the glass. But Steve was right. His cheeks were rounder and there was a small, but noticeable pouch under his chin. Frowning, he let his fingers tug and push and pinch at his skin, watching the way it dimpled and gave way under force. But then his eyes tracked downwards, down his neck to his exposed chest, to his stomach, his hips, and his eyebrows shot up.

“Oh.” The exclamation was near soundless, closer to an exhalation than any kind of voiced thought. Bucky twisted again, slowly, as he took in what he now saw. “I’ve put on weight.”

His stomach sloped out, slightly rounded, and there were faint, silvery marks next to his hips. Those marks stretched and caught the light as he moved. He pressed his fingers, metal and flesh, into his belly. His muscles tensed, he could feel them there, hard and fibrous, but covered in a layer of soft fat he hadn’t noticed before. It took a minute before his brain caught up but unfurling in his chest was a quick, warm delight that rushed up his neck and soaked his cheeks pink. A dazed smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Steve watching him carefully, confused but silent. “I’ve never put on weight before,” he said, voice coloured with a breathless amazement he could never have anticipated. 

“Sure you have-” started Steve but Bucky shook his head.

“Naw, that was all muscle -before. I could never - as a kid, remember? Not enough food going around. This is - this is different.” Thoughts sparked, lightning quick through his brain, fleeting and sharp and so searingly bright he couldn’t focus on a single one. “Wow,” he breathed, and turned back to the mirror. 

All his edges were softer, rounder, and he couldn’t look away. He had more marks forking down his biceps and a few more down his sides too. There was a soft rustling behind him and then Steve was pressed up against his back, skin to skin, as warm and as familiar as wrapping cool fingers around a mug of hot tea. He pulled him close. Bucky leaned back into him, letting his head fall back onto his shoulder. Lips pressed into the hollow under the hinge of his jaw and a buttery feeling slide down the length of his spine. He rolled his hips back a little further. 

“It suits you,” Steve murmured and hooked his chin over his shoulder so that they could look at one another in the mirror. 

“Yeah. It does.” 

They stood there for a few moments. Bucky could feel Steve watching him and the way the very tips of his fingers trailed, feather light, up and down his sides. His touch made him shiver. 

With a deep, satisfied sigh, Bucky drank the scene in. Seeing himself like this, soft, full, and cast in the warm, apricot glow of their lamps, Bucky knew that this was where he was meant to be. All that had come before had led him here. He knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet, but finally the worst was behind him and this sure was a beautiful clearing to be in. 

The man in the mirror smiled, just a slight quirk at the corners of his mouth, and his tired eyes crinkled with undisguised warmth. This, Bucky realised, was perhaps the truest version of himself he had ever seen and, boy, did he like what he saw.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Me again! So soon! I know. But this is my, somewhat late, entry for MagicalNet's Poetry Newts, taking a wee bit of inspo from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 which was quoted at the start of the fic. It's about the _vibe_ , don't think about it too deeply.
> 
> Thank you to the inimitable [darter_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darter_blue) for her impeccable beta work and for letting me crawl into her inbox at stupid o'clock while having a strop. Without her, this would never have been finished. 
> 
> You can find me over on tumblr [@martelldoran](https://martelldoran.tumblr.com/).


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